"I shall live in the house of the Lord all of
my days." - Ps 23:6
Recently, I was praying on this psalm trying to
determine what exactly it means to live in the house of the Lord. Do I even
want to live in the House of the Lord? If this is the goal, then how do I get
there?
I would like to imagine that these are the
questions that would have gone through Francis Xavier's mind before undertaking
his journey. In fact, I sincerely hope he had his share of doubts before
embarking on a journey to places unknown, to die far from home. Most of all, I
hope that through his doubts came this shimmering vision or idea of the goal, a
mirage even. It must be a mirage, something hoped for, yet really unseen. What
are our lives but this: seeking something that is beyond the scope of our
imagination, something so great that we cannot even fathom it.
St. Francis Xavier is the patron saint of
missionaries, easily dismissed because most of us do not live the life we
attribute to the mission fields. However, each of us is missioned by our
Baptism. We are all called to serve, to live as disciples of Christ. I think we
all approach the journey with our own perspective of what the House of the Lord
may be. We all have to face the ultimate question: is the journey worth it? Is
it worth giving our lives to Christ? Is heaven worth the prize?
I still have a difficult time determining what is
and isn’t worth the struggle. Francis is my inspiration to keep struggling
along, continuing my own journey with St. Ignatius’s parting words to his
friend: “Ite inflammate omnia” - Go set the world aflame!
Reflected by Matthew Keppel
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